Federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay said he will press the importance of the North American Free Trade Agreement in a speech to American farm groups Sunday – a message that comes one day before U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to address the same conference.

MacAulay is scheduled to speak Sunday at the American Farm Bureau’s annual meeting, being held in Nashville, TN from Jan. 5-10.

President Trump and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue are scheduled to speak at the forum on Monday. Country singer Reba McEntire is also expected to give a keynote speech.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to withdraw the United States from the trilateral trade agreement. Perdue, a former Georgia governor and a staunch supporter of free trade, is credited for having prevented Trump from acting upon those threats at least once.

MacAulay said Friday discussions about a possible face-to-face meeting with Perdue are ongoing. No details have been finalized.

Canada and the United States are in the midst of renegotiating the decades-old NAFTA.

Canadian and American farm groups have been pushing federal negotiators on both sides of the border to take a “do no harm” approach to the trade talks. Critics say current American negotiating demands, many of which have been deemed as ‘non-starters’ by Canada and Mexico, undermine that message.

American farmers voted overwhelmingly for Trump in the last election. However, many producers say the White House’s views on international trade risk hurting the sector’s key export markets at a time when many within the sector are struggling financially because of low commodity prices and severe weather events.

MacAulay held a roundtable meeting with Tennessee farm groups and other agricultural stakeholders Friday morning.

“Everybody in the room, I think it’s fair to say, were very strong supporters of NAFTA,” he said after the meeting. “I think they understand fully the value of trade.

“Everybody is concerned about this and they’re trying to make sure that the facts are known,” he said, noting agricultural trade between Canada and the United States has quadrupled under NAFTA.

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence met with Washington officials at the White House Thursday evening to discuss NAFTA and other agriculture policy issues. Meeting participants included Kansas Senator Pat Roberts, who chairs the Senate agriculture committee and is a firm supporter of NAFTA.

“We had a good meeting,” Roberts said in a statement after the meeting. “The president really listened to our concerns. I delivered the message that farmers and ranchers need to grow export markets and maintain our status as a reliable supplier, more especially with Canada and Mexico in NAFTA renegotiation.

“The president understands the difficulty farm country is going through,” Roberts said.

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale is also in the United States this week to push the importance of NAFTA. Goodale delivered the keynote address at the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Friday morning, where he focused heavily on the NAFTA file.

“The stakes are extremely high and we’re entering a critical phrase,” he said of the ongoing renegotiation. American agriculture, he noted, risks seeing a 12 per cent tariff increase on average on their exports and the loss of 50,000 jobs if NAFTA is disbanded.

The sixth round of NAFTA negotiations is scheduled for Jan. 23-28 in Montreal.